RXI News and Press, iShares Global Consumer Discretionary From 04/21/22

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, in an interview with the FT last week, said it is a “fantasy” to believe that the Fed can bring down inflation sufficiently without raising key interest rates to a level where they will constrain economic growth. The good news is th...

Retail sales and food-services spending rose 0.5 percent in March following a 0.8 percent gain in February. In real terms, total retail sales were down 0.7 percent (adjusted using the CPI). Categories were mostly higher for the month with ten up and three down in March. The gains ...

Bonds are hated right now and people want to believe yields will only go higher from here. Whether or not a recession will eventuate is not yet clear, but a material slowdown in growth is certainly what the leading indicators of the growth cycle are pointing to. The current inflat...

AIER’s Leading Indicators Index partially rebounded in March, posting an 8-point rise following a 17-point drop in February and a 13-point gain in January. The latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show the total number of job opening...

The broader equity categories turned in negative results in Q1. U.S. large-cap stocks, as measured by the S&P 500 Index, held up the best at a decline of 4.6%. Bonds performed worse than many of the equity categories, despite typically being viewed as a safe haven investment. In t...

Inflation expectations have kept the Federal Reserve center stage as they commenced their interest rate rising cycle in March. The war in Ukraine and Omicron’s spread in China impacted inflation and supply chains differently, but both delay supply chain normalization. Regar...

Stock markets fell in the first quarter as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine destabilized the growth outlook, amplified concerns about rising interest rates and unleashed geopolitical risks. While the conflict has created many uncertainties, we believe the impact of persistent infla...

Follow the Money is a series of brief, information-rich posts that I will publish periodically but not on a fixed schedule. After rallying for 9 of the last 11 days, the S&P 500 went from down -13% to down just -3.4%. Growth has been hit hard by the slide in tech stocks this y...

Retail sales continued to grow for the second month even after sizeable revisions in January. February sales were more diversified, which is a testament to a solid rebound in activity as Omicron waned. Maria Solovieva: We expect price pressures to ease in the second half of the ye...

Retail sales have gone up to start the year as Americans keep spending. Americans are spending a lot more money but they're not getting much more for it. despite surging prices, retail sales came in slightly below expectations in February. For further details see: Americ...